Feb 4th – Perth, Ontario. Check local listing for theatre location.
Feb 12th – Vancouver at the Tinseltown
Feb 13th – Port Hope, Ontario. Check local listing for theatre location
Feb 27th – Les Rendez Vous du Cinema Quebecois
MONTREAL GAZETTE - You simply must see Love and Savagery. I don’t often insist like this, but the latest film from Montreal director John N. Smith, one of our country’s finer filmmakers, is a remarkably powerful piece. It does not deserve to suffer the fate of most English-Canadian flicks, which slink quietly in and out of cinemas within a matter of days.
Love and Savagery is that most unlikely of films to hit screens in 2009 – it’s a smart, nuanced exploration of love, lust and spirituality, and how the three don’t necessarily mix well together. In other words, it’s a long way from Couples Retreat.
In fact, watching this gripping love story, I was reminded of those classic Graham Greene novels – like, say, The End of the Affair – about the battle between earthy desires and spiritual matters.
-Brendan Kelly
Montreal-born director, John Smith, who also helmed TV series The
Englishman's Boy and Random Passage, is in
charge of Love and Savagery, a feature centred on an
impossible love story.
Set in 1969 in Newfoundland and Ireland, it is the
story of a geologist and poet, played by Newfoundland
native Allan Hawco, who falls in love with a young Irish
woman who plans to devote her life to the church, a role
played by Irish actress Sarah Greene.
They meet while he is studying the bleak landscape of
the Burren, the rocky limestone area in northwestern
Ireland. The traditional community looks askance at their
relationship and the young woman is faced with a difficult
choice.
The film was shot in Newfoundland and in the village of
Ballyvaughan in County Clare, Ireland
Writer Des Walsh and director of photography Pierre
Letarte first worked with Smith on the Gemini and
Peabody-award-winning drama series The Boys of St.
Vincent, also set in Newfoundland.
Producers in Quebec and Ireland, the Newfoundland and
Labrador Film Development Corp. and the Irish Film Board
have backed the film, to be distributed in Canada by
Mongrel Media.
